Women of Valor

You are here

AnnaSokolow

This web exhibit
was made possible by a generous donation from
the Rosh Foundation.

"I felt a deep social sense about
what I wanted to express, and the things that
affected me deeply personally [are] what I
did, and commented on."

Anna Sokolow was a dancer and
choreographer of uncompromising integrity.
Believing strongly that dance could be more
than mere entertainment, she explored the
most pressing issues of her day—from the
Great Depression, to the Holocaust, to the
alienated youth of the 1960s—and challenged
her audiences to think deeply about
themselves and their society.

From Bullfight, a film by Shirley Clarke, 1955

This film is the only extant recording of Sokolow performing.

A key figure in the development of modern
dance in both Israel and Mexico, Sokolow
worked in numerous countries, from Holland to
Japan. She also worked with a variety of
theater forms; in addition to regular
involvement with both Broadway and
off-Broadway stage productions, she often
experimented with combining dance, mime and
the spoken word into a single piece.

Sokolow frequently found inspiration in
Jewish history and culture. Not only did her
upbringing amidst the left-wing movements of
New York's Jewish immigrant communities
shape her interest in social and political
injustices, but Biblical and modern Jewish
figures, Jewish rituals, and other Jewish
themes formed the basis of diverse
compositions.

Sokolow's compositions were generally
abstract; rather than following a narrative
structure, they searched for truth in
movement and examined a broad range of human
emotions. Exploring as they did many of the
social, political, and human conflicts that
characterize life in the modern world, they
often left viewers feeling shaken and
disturbed. But even when dealing with the
darkest of subjects, Sokolow's
appreciation of the dignity of the human
spirit and its resilience in the face of
trouble and despair was evident. As a
reviewer wrote in 1967, "Miss
Sokolow cares—if only to the extent of
pointing out that the world is bleeding. I
find hope in such pessimism."

This "debut" was unusual, in that Sokolow's works had already been performed extensively off-Broadway. For her official debut, Sokolow chose a number of compositions with biting social and political commentary. Strange American Funeral, for example, was based on a poem about an immigrant steelworker killed by falling into a vat of boiling metal. As a reviewer commented, "The bitter satire and relentless expression of struggle was carried out with such intensity of purpose as to make one's blood race with driving force and rouse the most lethargic observer to indignant approbation." Excerpts from a War Poem was also based on a poem, "War is Beautiful," but this time Sokolow treated the poem with acerbic satire. Critic Marjorie Church wrote in response that Sokolow "has taken the essense of fascism, embodied in a poem extolling the beauties of war, and has plucked this expression of an ideology mercilessly apart, line by line, exposing a ruthlessness, a savagery, and a masochistic blindness underlying this viewpoint which are appalling in their implications."

Mexican Retablo is one of many works Sokolow choreographed on Mexican themes. The first part of the piece shows "Our Lady" standing on a pedestal, as depicted in native paintings, while the second shows a supplicant kneeling emotionally in front of the Virgin.

The Exile was the first of Sokolow's many compositions on Jewish themes. The piece was composed of two sections. The first, "I had a garden...," depicted Jewish life in the safety of pre-Nazi Europe, while the second, "The beast is in the garden...," portrayed the arrival of the terrifying beast of Nazism.

Anna Sokolow in her "Kaddish"

Anna dancing with members of Israel's Inbal Dance Theatre

Anna Sokolow's Players' Project performing Sokolow's "Opus '65"

Introducing a 1966 television version of Rooms, dance critic Clive Barnes said, "Today in America the artist has come to look at the world he lives in with unblinkered eyes. Theatrical dance ranges from entertainment to spectacle. But there is a specifically American form of dance that accepts modern themes of life, hope, death, and despair, as searchingly as does any other American art. Such works have an engagement with life as lived. Typical of them is Anna Sokolow's somber masterpiece, Rooms. When it was created in 1954, it was perhaps the first time dance had used jazz with irony, so that its assertive upbeat became the background not for teen-age rebels, but for the tragic isolation of man in the jazz age.... Rooms is a ballet about loneliness of the spirit, the hunger of the soul. The people here live cooped up yet isolated in the tiny box-like rooms, unadjusted, rejected, and inconsolable over the loss of their natural dignity and innocence. Yet each one of these frightened creatures is part of ourselves, and the scene of Rooms is the world itself, now, today. Rooms is a ballet for a generation without faith. Even the titles of the individual dances tell everything. Escape. Going. Desire. Panic."

Notes: From videotape of "The Anna Sokolow Birthday Gala," The Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullam Center.

Sokolow (left) rehearsing

Sokolow rehearsing with dancers

In 1966, Sokolow spent several weeks teaching in Tokyo. Her Japanese students were often baffled by her vehemence and power as a teacher. "Work like wild animals, not like little students!... I'm not here to be polite. I'm here to tell the truth," she would yell at them. By the end of the course, the students had grown to appreciate their difficult taskmaster.

Early Years

Anna Sokolow was born on February 9, 1910,
in Hartford, CT, to
Sarah (Kagan) and
Samuel Sokolow. Recent immigrants from
Pinsk, the Sokolows had difficulty adjusting
to life in America. As Anna later recalled,
"In the European Jewish tradition,
the man was really the scholar, and the woman
he married and her family took care of him
and their children. When they came here, a
lot of them had to change.... They learned to
cope with the system and realized that they
had to earn a living. Well, my father was
totally bewildered by it.... Eventually my
mother, with her great energy, stepped in and
took over."

"It was on St. Marks Place that we lived and it was always the same kind of an apartment. It was a kind of railroad flat with the toilet in the hall. My mother was a real working-class woman. It was very difficult, very difficult. Imagine a mother of four, working in a factory, coming home and taking care of four children and a husband."

In the early 1910s, the Sokolows, now with
four children, moved to New York City. Sarah
found work in the garment industry, but
Samuel soon became ill with Parkinson's
disease, and Sarah had to place him in a
charity hospital. She also put her youngest
daughter, Gertie, in a Jewish orphanage for
several years; her son, Isidore, dropped out
of school to contribute to the family
income.

Despite the hardships, Sarah retained her
strong will and high spirits. Attracted to
the Socialist Party and trade unions by their
acceptance of women as valued participants,
she attended political meetings, joined the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union,
and took part in union solidarity marches,
sometimes bringing her daughters.

Anna inherited her mother's comfort
with unconventionality and her commitment to
social and economic activism. She also soaked
up the vibrant Jewish culture that surrounded
her. Sarah regularly took her children to
Workman's Circle dances and the Yiddish
theater, in addition to keeping a kosher
kitchen, observing Jewish holidays, and
lighting Shabbat candles every Friday night.
The Lower
East Side environment proved a
significant influence on Sokolow's later
work.

Remaining information from Warren, 2-6, and Interview with Anna Sokolow by Barbara Newman, December 1974-May 1975, for Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center.

Madly in Love with Dancing

At about the age of ten, Anna began
attending classes sponsored by the Emanuel
Sisterhood of Personal Service, together with
her older sister Rose. Sarah Sokolow was
extremely concerned that her young children
never be left alone without supervision, and
the Sisterhood provided a safe haven for them
at lunch breaks and after school. There, in a
class on interpretive dance in the style of
dance pioneer Isadora Duncan, Anna quickly
"fell madly in love with
dancing."

"It was a must that after school we wouldn't play on the streets, but that we would be taken care of, so from 3 to 6 we were in the Settlement House, and that's where I saw dancing. I remember just looking in the room and seeing them dancing and I liked it, so I asked, could I join, and they said, 'Yes, of course,' and that was it. I joined the class and fell madly in love with dancing."

By the time Anna was 15, the Sisterhood
dance teachers had taught her all they could.
Recognizing her promise, they sent her to
continue her training at the Neighborhood
Playhouse, one of the first important
"Off-Broadway" theaters, then
housed at the Henry Street
Settlement House. At about this time,
Anna also dropped out of school and left
home. She supported herself by taking odd
jobs, including working in a factory tying
teabags.

"From the Settlement House, the woman in charge of it thought that I should have more advanced training. She sent me to the Neighborhood Playhouse. And then into that atmosphere came Martha Graham and Louis Horst to teach us modern dance and choreography. And that was a great turning point. Especially studying with Louis Horst, studying choreography."

At the Neighborhood Playhouse, Sokolow
studied with such important early modern
dance figures as Blanche Talmud and Bird
Larson; she also took classes in pantomime,
diction, and voice. When the Playhouse left
the Henry Street Settlement House in 1928 and
opened a fully professional School of the
Theatre, Sokolow was given a full scholarship
and invited to join the school's Junior
Festival Players. Highly respected performers
and teachers taught the students movement,
singing, diction, and theater craft, while
dancer Martha Graham and composer Louis Horst
revolutionized the Playhouse's dance
training. Sokolow's later attempts to
bring together various theater forms grew out
of her early training at the Neighborhood
Playhouse.

Martha Graham & Louis Horst

After finishing her training at the
Neighborhood Playhouse, Sokolow joined Martha
Graham's new professional dance company
in late 1929. For much of the next decade,
she studied and danced with Graham,
participating in such notable works as
Primitive Mysteries (1931) and
Celebration (1934) and in
Graham's first tour. "It was
staggering," Sokolow later
recalled. "I just knew I
was in the presence of something
great."

Henrietta Szold with her parents in Lake Placid, 1897

The relationship between Sokolow and
Graham, however, was often difficult. Graham
demanded unquestioning loyalty from her
dancers, who worked nonstop for no pay,
praise, or encouragement, and Sokolow, as she
herself said, did not "have the
temperament of a disciple."
Sokolow's interest in exploring her own
Russian-Jewish background clashed with
Graham's focus on Americana, and her
efforts to strike out in her own direction
found little support from Graham. Sokolow
left the company with some bitterness in
approximately 1938. Only much later was she
fully able to acknowledge Graham's
abilities: "Now, at my age, and with
everything I've done," she
wrote in the 1990s, "I [have] begun
to realize what a great artist Martha Graham
was."

"From the very first day I studied with Louis Horst, I knew that for me, it wasn't just enough to be a soloist. His way of working introduced us to music. Because you know a lot of dancers don't know anything about music, to this day. They hear it, it goes in one ear and out the other. But this man made us aware of the significance and the beauty of music, all kinds of music.

"Even today I think, 'Would Louis Horst like this? Would Louis Horst like this?' He had impeccable taste, and he was probably one of the most truthful people in the dance world. He never, never lied. He was never polite, but he was noble."

Sokolow always insisted that Louis Horst,
Graham's accompanist and composer, was a
far greater influence on her development than
Graham herself. Horst taught choreography at
the Neighborhood Playhouse, and Sokolow was
his most promising student. For several
years, she earned $25 a week as his
assistant, becoming known as "Louis'
Whip." Horst not only imbued in her a
thorough appreciation of both music and dance
forms, he also encouraged her to explore her
own ideas in her compositions. "The
way I found out [who I was] was not with
Martha Graham," she remarked later,
"but with Louis Horst."
For decades, Sokolow looked to Horst for
approval.

Notes:

Quotation beginning "It was staggering..." from Interview with Anna Sokolow by Barbara Newman, December 1974-May 1975, for Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center.

Quotation begnning "The way I found out...." from Interview with Anna Sokolow, 1974-75.

Remaining information from Larry Warren, Anna Sokolow: The Rebellious Spirit (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 19-21; Interview with Anna Sokolow, 1974-5; and "Agnes de Mille talks about Anna Sokolow and Martha Graham," May 31, 1974, in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Radical Dance

In the early 1930s, while still dancing
for Graham, Sokolow began to work with other
groups and to choreograph pieces of her own.
As did many other
Jewish women dancers, she became
associated with a loose coalition known as
the "radical
dance" movement.

Although modern dancers had always
believed dance should be more than mere
entertainment, Sokolow and her contemporaries
searched for a new, revolutionary
approach. Unlike early modern dance
pioneers, who often looked to ancient myths
and timeless legends, the "radical
dancers" saw their art as a potential
agent of societal change and found
inspiration in events around them. Disturbed
by the upheavals of the Depression at home
and the rising threat of fascism abroad, they
tried to raise consciousness by dramatizing
the economic, social, and political crises of
their time. Audience members, they hoped,
would in turn be inspired to help resolve
these crises.

Sokolow's first major composition for
a group, Anti-War Trilogy, was
performed at the 1933 First Anti-War
Congress, sponsored by the American League
Against War and Fascism. She continued to
portray the dangers of war and fascism in
such works as Inquisition '36,
Excerpts from a War Poem, and
Slaughter of the Innocents. She also
examined the oppression of industrial workers
(Strange American Funeral), analyzed
juvenile delinquency (Case History
No.--), and satirized modern society
(Romantic Dances,
Histrionics).

By the mid-1930s, Sokolow was the youngest
American choreographer to lead her own
professional dance group, "Dance
Unit." In 1936, she staged the first
full-evening concert of her own works at New
York's 92nd Street Y.

In 1934, Sokolow traveled to the
Soviet Union, where she hoped to find a
truly revolutionary dance movement. She was
disappointed to discover that Soviet dance
was in fact less avant-garde than the
American "radical dance"
movement.

Mexico

In the spring of 1939, Mexican painter
Carlos Mérida saw Sokolow and her "Dance
Unit" perform in New York. Deeply
impressed, he immediately invited them to
Mexico.

Despite the fact that little modern dance
existed in Mexico, Sokolow's work was an
immediate success. People of all classes—from
peasants to professionals—flocked to the
performances, the number of which was
increased from six to twenty-three. Asked to
work toward the creation of a
government-sponsored modern dance company,
Sokolow remained in Mexico when her dancers
returned to New York. After eight months of
intense work, the members of the Ballet
Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Ballet) debuted
in March 1940. Shortly thereafter, Sokolow
helped to form La Paloma Azul (The
Blue Dove), a group that brought together
dancers, artists and musicians.

Despite critical acclaim, La Paloma Azul
did not survive beyond its first season. Yet
Sokolow's work laid the foundations for
an indigenous Mexican modern dance movement.
For decades, her original dancers were
referred to as "Las Sokolovas,"
while she herself became known as "la
fundadora de la danza moderna de
Mexico," or "the founder of Mexican
modern dance."

Mexico also had a profound effect on
Sokolow's artistic development. Deeply
moved by the Mexican people's reverence
for art, she also felt a strong affinity for
Mexico's artistic community, including
Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and
Silvestre Revueltas. "For the first
time in my life," she said,
"I knew what it felt like to be an
artist." Sokolow created a number
of pieces on Mexican and Spanish themes, and
a new lyricism appeared in her work. For nine
years, she commuted between Mexico City and
New York, acknowledging with reluctance that
her true creative roots lay in New York.

Notes:

Quotation beginning "For the first time in my life" from Margaret Murphy and Lucille Rhodes (interviewers), Outtakes from the film They Are Their Own Gifts, December 17, 1975, cited in Larry Warren, Anna Sokolow: The Rebellious Spirit (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 69.

Jewish Dance

Prior to her stay in Mexico, Sokolow
created only one piece with clear Jewish
content, the 1939 The Exile. In part
influenced by the strong role of religion in
Mexican culture, she began to draw more
frequently on Jewish history, religion,
culture, and society in her work.

Young Jewish dancers today continue to take inspiration from Sokolow's work. This performance of Sokolow's Kaddish comes from Hadassah Segal's longer program "Deep Roots, Exotic Flowers: Dances by Jewish Women Choreographers." Segal highlights modern dance works by three internationally acclaimed Jewish women choreographers: Sokolow, Ze'eva Cohen, and Margalit Oved. The program includes a narration to contextualize the dances in terms of their Jewish and artistic significance.

Many of Sokolow's Jewish compositions
explored themes of exile and suffering, as
did her work as a whole. Her 1945
Kaddish, choreographed just as the
Holocaust ended, drew upon traditional Jewish
elements to express her intense pain and
sorrow. Beating her breast and invoking
tefillin by wrapping a leather strap around
her arm, Sokolow created a heartwrenching
manifestation of mourning. Her Dreams, premiered in 1961, was
the first serious dance exploration of the
Holocaust.

Yet Sokolow did not simply mourn for a
lost culture and a lost population. Many of
her pieces explored the Jewish people's
strength and courage in the face of great
adversity; others commented upon Jewish
religious and social traditions. Sokolow
based a number of works specifically on
Jewish female figures, from the Biblical
Ruth, Miriam, and Deborah to the modern
Hannah Senesh and Golda Meir. Her 1943
Songs of a Semite, named after a
book of poems by Emma Lazarus, presented
a lonely Jewish woman who gained strength
from remembering the courage of several
Biblical women.

Anna Sokolow's Players' Project performing Sokolow's "Dreams"

The Jewish community provided Sokolow with
opportunity as well as inspiration. Not only
did Jewish unions and fraternal organizations
form many of her first audiences, but she
premiered a number of pieces at New
York's 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew
Association. Sokolow also staged festivals
and pageants in support of State of Israel
bonds and directed a synagogue service
combining poetry and dance.

Information about Songs of a Semite from Edwin Denby, "A Modern Dancer—Other Dance Events," New York Herald Tribune, December 12, 1943.

Broadway & Other Venues

Influenced by her wide-ranging training at
the Neighborhood Playhouse, Sokolow never
limited herself strictly to dance. In 1935,
her Anti-War Cycle appeared on the
program with Clifford Odets' play,
Waiting for Lefty, strengthening her
pre-existing connection to the theater. Soon
after, she directed the dances for a Broadway
production of André Obey's
Noah.

"I began to work with actors, movement for actors. I remember doing 'Camino Real' with Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and a very important production on Broadway, 'Street Scene.' The music was written by Kurt Weil. And then 'Candide,' the original 'Candide,' of Leonard Bernstein. All through that period, I worked that way, plus continued my connection in Mexico, plus gave classes for dancers and actors."

In the late 1930s, Sokolow did the
choreography for Sing for Your
Supper, a revue staged by the WPA's
Federal Theatre Project to put unemployed
singers, actors and dancers to work. In 1947,
she choreographed the musical version of
Elmer Rice's play Street Scene,
with a score by Kurt Weill and lyrics by
Langston Hughes. Her dances—particularly a
duet based on the jitterbug—dramatically
heightened the story's effect and broke
new ground on Broadway. Asked how she managed
to capture so effectively the flavor of the
Lower East Side streets, Sokolow replied,
"It's simple, when you've
been part of them."

Over the next several years, Sokolow
staged dances and movement for plays on and
off Broadway. Her work ranged from Leonard
Bernstein's version of Candide
to her own dramatization of Kafka's
Metamorphosis. She also
choreographed a season for the New York City
Center Opera.

In 1967, Sokolow was invited to
choreograph the dances for the rock musical
Hair. With the director and writers
clashing over the staging, Sokolow gradually
took on more and more responsibility; by the
end of rehearsals, she was serving as
director. When the original director returned
at the last minute, however, Sokolow was
dismissed and much of her staging reworked.
Yet she still had a significant impact on the
cast and the performance, and consequently on
the future of Broadway.

Israel

In 1951, the America-Israel Cultural
Foundation asked choreographer Jerome Robbins
to select an Israeli dance group to represent
Israeli dance abroad. Robbins chose the Inbal
Dance Theatre, a promising Yemenite Jewish
ensemble. He realized, however, that the
group needed help in raising itself to fully
professional standards. Sokolow, who had
worked in similar situations in Mexico and
displayed a strong interest in Jewish themes,
seemed the perfect candidate to take on this
task.

Members of Israel's Springboard Dance Company performing Sokolow's "Tribute to Gertrude Kraus"

Arriving in Israel in 1953, Sokolow was
deeply impressed by the Inbal dancers'
Yemenite movements and rhythms, their
creativity and their dedication. Her
challenge, she felt, was to teach them useful
techniques and professional habits without
meddling with the core of their dancing.
Dancers in the new nation struggled with poor
working conditions, often using improvised
stages as they toured cities and
kibbutzim, but Sokolow, having faced
similar problems in the early years of her
career, was undaunted. After three years of
hard work, Inbal made a triumphant European
debut.

"Jerome Robbins was asked by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation to go to Israel to see what dance company might be able to come to America and represent dance in Israel. He saw Inbal and became very excited about them but felt that they needed professional training but would not lose their basic quality. So he asked me to come with him and I said OK, and I went, and that was it.

"The first year I went was in '53. I had no conception of Jewish life in Oriental countries, and to see how they used the Jewish themes in a Yemenite way, an Oriental way, was a completely new experience for me.

"I never lost my connection with Israel. I didn't expect that I would be tremendously moved, that the minute the plane went down and touched the ground in Israel, I was overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling about being there, and that extraordinary feeling never left me."

Recalling her first visit to Israel,
Sokolow commented, "I certainly
didn't expect to be affected so deeply,
but the minute the plane landed I was
overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling
about being there. I didn't have any kind
of strong Zionist background, but going there
changed my point of view. [Israel] is now one
of the deepest things in my
life."

Sokolow returned to Israel virtually every
summer for decades, teaching countless groups
of dancers and actors. In the early 1960s,
she created a new company, the Lyric Theatre,
designed to bring theater, music and dance
together. Although the company survived only
a few years, it helped Israeli modern dancers
achieve professional standing and
recognition.

Choreographic Innovations

In 1951, Sokolow staged and performed in a
theater-dance production of S. Ansky's
play, The Dybbuk. The dramatization
represented one of Sokolow's first major
attempts to combine dance with mime and the
spoken word, a process that had long
intrigued her. Following The Dybbuk,
Sokolow largely ceased to perform in public,
preferring to focus instead on
choreography.

Two years later, Sokolow premiered
Lyric Suite. Set to a complex,
atonal score, the 1953 piece followed neither
meter nor melodic line, but rather responded
to the music's cumulative effect. Sokolow
saw the composition as a personal artistic
turning point, commenting that "[i]n
working on Lyric Suite I feel as
though I began to find...my vocabulary of
movement." After viewing the piece,
Sokolow's mentor Louis Horst told her,
"Now, Anna, you are a
choreographer!" It was the highest
compliment he could have paid her.

Over the next decades, Sokolow continued
to experiment with combinations of music,
dance and theater. In such works as Act
Without Words (1969), Magritte,
Magritte (1970), and From the
Diaries of Franz Kafka (1980), she
freely mixed mime, acting, dance and music to
create a unique and powerful art form. In
1969, she created a new company—called Lyric
Theatre, like her short-lived Israeli
group—devoted specifically to compositions of
this type. As she said, "I prefer to
work with people who can dance and
act rather than dancers who act or actors who
dance." A few years later, the
group was reconstituted as The Players'
Project. It is now known as the Sokolow Dance
Foundation.

Sokolow's choice of music for her
pieces was also highly innovative. Working
with such composers as Teo Macero and Kenyon
Hopkins, she was one of the first
choreographers to set her compositions to
serious, edgy jazz music. One of these works,
Opus '65, became the prototype
for countless later "rock
ballets."

Notes:

Quotation beginning "[i]n working on Lyric Suite" from Interview with Anna Sokolow by Barbara Newman, December 1974-May 1975, for Oral History Project of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center.

Quotation beginning "I prefer to work with people" cited in Aaron Cohen, "Anna Sokolow is...," undated New York Times clipping from the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

From her early treatment of problems such
as juvenile crime, industrial oppression and
the horrors of war, Sokolow moved later to
more internal conflicts, examining the full
range of human emotions engendered by life in
contemporary society. As one critic
commented, "[I]t is her depictions
of the brutal loneliness and despair of urban
life that have defined her."

Introducing a 1966 television version of Rooms, dance critic Clive Barnes said, "Today in America the artist has come to look at the world he lives in with unblinkered eyes. Theatrical dance ranges from entertainment to spectacle. But there is a specifically American form of dance that accepts modern themes of life, hope, death, and despair, as searchingly as does any other American art. Such works have an engagement with life as lived. Typical of them is Anna Sokolow's somber masterpiece, Rooms. When it was created in 1954, it was perhaps the first time dance had used jazz with irony, so that its assertive upbeat became the background not for teen-age rebels, but for the tragic isolation of man in the jazz age.... Rooms is a ballet about loneliness of the spirit, the hunger of the soul. The people here live cooped up yet isolated in the tiny box-like rooms, unadjusted, rejected, and inconsolable over the loss of their natural dignity and innocence. Yet each one of these frightened creatures is part of ourselves, and the scene of Rooms is the world itself, now, today. Rooms is a ballet for a generation without faith. Even the titles of the individual dances tell everything. Escape. Going. Desire. Panic."

Notes: From videotape of "The Anna Sokolow Birthday Gala," The Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullam Center.

In 1955, Sokolow premiered Rooms,
a powerful portrayal of the terrifying
loneliness that afflicts even people living
in the closest proximity to each other.
Unsettled by the work, critic John Martin
wrote, "Its ultimate aim seems to be
to induce you to jump as inconspicuously as
possible into the nearest river."
Ten years later, Sokolow completed Opus '65, a vivid depiction
of the era's alienated youth culture. The
withdrawn sufferers of Rooms now
stood as an angry, disaffected group, tired
of feeling isolated and disconnected. Yet
their efforts at connecting were frightening
and left audiences feeling shaken and
disturbed.

Critics began to refer to Sokolow as a
"prophet
of doom." Yet Sokolow's
choreography was rarely wholly disheartening
or depressing. Rather, she retained a faith
in the dignity of the human spirit and the
human capacity for endurance that tempered
the discomfort her work caused. As Clive
Barnes wrote, "No one would go to
Miss Sokolow for a good laugh—yet far more
importantly no one would go to her for a good
cry.... Sokolow's belief in humanity
shines through her pessimism. Her pity and
her compassion give her taut and tortured
dances a justification."

Anna Sokolow's Players' Project performing Sokolow's "Opus '65"

Sokolow, moreover, had a lighter side, and
her work could be humorous or lyrical as well
as disturbing. A Short Lecture and
Demonstration on the Evolution of
Ragtime was a delightful spoof of
lecture-demonstrations, while pieces such as
Ballade displayed a graceful
lyricism that contrasted with many of her
darker works.

Notes:

Quotation beginning "[I]t is her depictions" from Jennifer Dunning, "From Urban Walks, A New Sokolow Dance," New York Times, October 31, 1991.

Quotation beginning "Its ultimate aim" from John Martin, "Dance: Study in Despair," New York Times, May 17, 1955.

Quotation beginning "No one would go" from Clive Barnes, "Dance: Pity Without Sentimentality" and "The Perfect Answer," New York Times, March 12 and March 26, 1967.

Teaching & Rehearsing

When Sokolow began her career in the
1930s, it was virtually impossible to earn a
living as a modern dancer. Like most of her
colleagues, she supplemented her income by
teaching. Joining some of the era's
best-known dancers, she taught classes in the
Graham technique at New York's 92nd
Street Y and the Neighborhood Playhouse. This
work did more to support her than did most of
her concert appearances.

Sokolow later taught extensively in New
York City and around the United States. She
also gave workshops and classes and staged
works in many countries, including England,
the Netherlands, and Japan, as well as in her
beloved Mexico and Israel.

In the 1930s, Sokolow began giving classes
to the Group Theatre, and she continued to
work with actors as well as dancers until the
very last years of her life. In the 1940s and
'50s, she worked with Elia Kazan at the
Actors Studio, and in 1958, she began decades
of teaching actors and dancers at the
Juilliard Dance Division. "My first
aim is to free the actor from his
self-consciousness," she once
commented. "I make him forget about
the cliches about having to smoke, to touch
or handle something.... It may seem to the
actor that he is learning how to move and how
to use his body, but what he really learns is
to be simple, honest and
human."

A demanding teacher, Sokolow had no
patience with dancers she suspected of
insincere dramatic projection. Caring little
about a particular style or technique, she
believed students needed to find their own
way and to draw from true emotions. She was
often difficult, but students who responded
with the passion, intensity, and vulnerabilty
she sought earned her respect and became
intensely loyal to her. Dancer José Coronado
reflected, "I fell in love with the
woman, and I followed her like a dog—because
of her integrity."

Recognitions

At the age of only 27, Sokolow, together
with José Límon and Esther Junger, received
one of the first fellowships from the
Bennington School of the Dance. At a time
when most dancers and choreographers
subsisted on a shoestring budget, the support
provided an important lift to the young
choreographer's career.

Over the next decades, Sokolow was often
recognized as one of her era's most
gifted and innovative choreographers. The
citation for a 1961 Dance Magazine
award read: "To Anna Sokolow, whose
career as concert dancer, choreographer, and
teacher in this country and on the
international scene has been distinguished by
integrity [and] creative boldness, and whose
recent concert works have opened the road to
a penetratingly human approach to the jazz
idiom." In 1967, Sokolow was one of
six American choreographers to receive
$10,000 grants from the National Council on
the Arts (soon to become the National
Endowment for the Arts), and in 1988 she was
awarded Mexico's highest civilian honor
given to a foreigner.

On several occasions, Sokolow's strong
interest in Jewish dance and Jewish themes
earned her special recognition. In 1975, New
York's 92nd Street Y presented her with
an award for her contributions to the world
of dance and to the Jewish people. Eleven
years later, a gala evening in Sokolow's
honor opened a three-day conference on
"Jews and Judaism in
Dance."

In 1991, Sokolow received the Samuel H.
Scripps American Dance Festival Award, given
to those who have made a significant lifetime
contribution to American modern dance. In
1995, a star-studded group of dancers, actors
and musicians gathered to celebrate
Sokolow's 85th birthday with a grand gala
of speeches, memories and performances. In
1998, two years before her death, Sokolow was
inducted into the National Museum of
Dance's Dance Hall of Fame.

Remaining information from Warren, passim, and programs and videotapes from "Jews and Judaism in Dance" and Sokolow's 85th Birthday Gala.

Legacy

Sokolow never shrank from confronting her
audiences with difficult realities. She
searched for truth in movement, using dance
to explore the broad range of human emotions
and encouraging her audiences to think for
themselves. "[M]y works never have
real endings," she said.
"[T]hey just stop and fade out,
because I don't believe there is any
final solution to the problems of today. All
I can do is provoke the audience into an
awareness of them."

From the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center

"It gives me great pleasure to present a proclamation to Anna Sokolow, who is a part of what New York City and what New York City dance, and what American dance is all about. The proclamation reads:

'Whereas as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and as the founder and artistic director of 'The Players' Project, Anna Sokolow has been a leading figure in the growth and development of modern dance in the United States and internationally, and whereas critics have characterized her work as lyrical, penetrating, startling, engaging and charged with a power derived from the secret domain of the emotions, and whereas since her professional premiere in New York as a dancer with Martha Graham in 1928, Anna Sokolow has been a powerful artistic presence in our city, influencing the course of dance in America through her performances, and her instruction of dancers at the 92nd Street Y and the Julliard School, and whereas friends, pupils, colleagues, and admirers of Anna Sokolow are gathered today to salute her achievements and to celebrate her 85th birthday, now therefore I, Ruth Messinger, President of the Borough of Manhattan, in recognition of the woman who was one of the great artistic creditors of this city, do hereby proclaim today, Wednesday, February 15, 1995, in the Borough of Manhattan, as Anna Sokolow Day.'"

The conviction that "[a]rt should
be a reflection and a comment on contemporary
life" shaped Sokolow's entire
career. Always animated by an intense social
consciousness, Sokolow believed strongly in
the necessity of involvement with the world
around her. "The artist should
belong to his society," she wrote,
"yet without feeling that he has to
conform to it.... Then, although he belongs
to his society, he can change it, presenting
it with fresh feelings, fresh
ideas."

"I don't end it, because I don't feel there's any ending. Rooms ends where it began. Dreams, no ending. That's the Jew in me. Ask the world a question, and there's no answer. All I do is present what I feel, and you, you answer. You answer."

Sokolow died on March 29, 2000, at the age
of 90. Her unique and powerful approach to
her art left its mark on students and
colleagues, from Robin Williams to Alvin
Ailey, and countless amateurs and actors as
well as professional dancers remember her
lessons with gratitude and admiration. Gerald
Arpino, artistic director of the Joffrey
Ballet, spoke for many when he paid tribute
to Sokolow at her 85th birthday: "I
became a dancer because of the pure joy and
spirit of dance. I remained in the field ever
since because such pioneers as Anna Sokolow
showed me the deep commitment and intense
humanism that dance is capable of expressing.
Her indomitable spirit, her courage, her
uncompromising truths are beacons not only
for the dance world but for all
humankind."

Notes:

Quotation beginning "My works never have real endings" from Anna Sokolow "The Rebel and the Bourgeois," in Selma Jeanne Cohen, ed., The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), 36.

Quotations beginning "art should be a reflection" and "The artist should belong" from Sokolow, "The Rebel and the Bourgeois," 32-33.